NEWSLETTER #112 / April 29, 2018
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The surveillance economy took a big leap forward in the first quarter of 2018.
Despite massive amounts of bad publicity about the dangers of their irresponsible practices -- and the wailing and moaning of governments, media, and dumbass bloggers -- three of the biggest online spymasters had monster quarters.
Google (ok, ok, Alphabet) king of the data accumulators saw its ad revenue grow by 20% in the first quarter, to over 26 billion dollars. Their net climbed to over $9 billion.
Facebook, who faced unprecedented public scorn due to its scandalous handling of its users' personal information, saw its quarterly revenue jump almost 50% from about $8 billion to about $12 billion.
Amazon also had a strong advertising quarter. A spokesperson said, "Advertising continues to be a strong contributor to profitability and had strong results this quarter." Earlier, Amazon ad revenue was projected at over $3 billion by eMarketer.
As the great Don Marti says, "today’s web advertising business is a hacking contest. Whoever can build the best system to take personal information from the user wins, whether or not the user knows about it."
Influencer Influenza
There is disease all over the web these days. Ad Age reported this week about big fraud in the "influencer" marketing industry. Apparently the people following influencers aren't always people.
Months ago The New York Times reported on how "celebrities, athletes, pundits and politicians have millions of fake followers." Some marketers seem to have low reading comprehension and haven't gotten the message.
The Ad Age article claims that the marketing geniuses at P&G have 2 brands in the top 10 most fraud-ridden influencer audiences.
But the champion marketing bozos buying this hooey are Ritz-Carlton. A study by North Points Group, which is an influencer marketing measurement company, says an astounding 78% of the "people" following Ritz-Carlton's paid influencers aren't people at all.
On the plus side, Ritz-Carlton research shows a massive spike in purchase intent by upscale bots.
Unclear On The Concept
This week Facebook sent me an ad about how wonderful their new data policies are. The ad told me that misuse of data - Facebook's core competency - is not my friend.
The clumsy ad itself was a brazen example of data misuse.
The ad included implied endorsements from two people I know who had no idea they were being used in this way. One is my nephew, the other my friend. As one of them said when shown this horseshit with their name attached to it, "Whaaat! "
Facebook has language buried deep in its devious terms of use which allows them to take data and use it in sleazy ways like this.
You're right, Mr. Facebook, data misuse is not my friend. And once again you showed me why.
Revolt Of The Humans
Here's something you don't see everyday -- a car spot that actually has something to say. All the wannabe creatives who go on and on about "storytelling" need to take a good look at how it's done.
